


everybody's looking for something (some of them want to use you)

by SafelyCapricious



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Creepy, Dark, F/M, Hydra Grant Ward, Stalking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-26
Updated: 2015-02-26
Packaged: 2018-03-15 07:28:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3438737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SafelyCapricious/pseuds/SafelyCapricious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jemma was proud that her voice didn’t shake when she said, “If I ever see you again, I’ll kill you.” She meant it entirely, with all that she was.  </p><p>He'd smiled, when she said it, but that didn’t matter. She had not shown any weakness. He had to know she meant it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	everybody's looking for something (some of them want to use you)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shineyma](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/gifts).



> This was beta'd by the incredible, amazing, beautifully talented [jdphoenix](http://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix). Any and all mistakes that still remain are totally mine because I failed to listen to her, I promise. 
> 
> Also, this is a present to Amy because she's amazing and I have been teasing her about this literally from the first day we spoke.
> 
> I suggest the Sucker Punch soundtrack as appropriately creepy for this.

Jemma was proud that her voice didn’t shake when she said, “If I ever see you again, I’ll kill you.” She meant it entirely, with all that she was. 

He’d smiled, when she said it, but that didn’t matter. She had not shown any weakness. He had to know she meant it.

She did feel slightly guilty about him being in his brother’s custody. He’d told her about his brother, not a lot but enough to leave an impression. So when she overheard two agents say his name as she was passing by, she paused to listen, curious how it was going. She fiddled with some papers she was holding as they walked by.

“Yeah, I heard he got out less than an hour after we handed him over.” 

She felt like she’d been struck by lightning, the papers fluttered from her hands to the ground, and she couldn’t move for a long moment.

“Jesus, this is the problem with Federal Agents, did they just hand him the key or what?” They rounded the corner and went out of sight, still discussing what had happened. She took one deep breath, then another, then slowly crouched down to gather her papers with shaking hands. 

Coulson hadn’t told her, no one had told her. He’d been handed over two days ago – he’d been free for two days – and no one had told her. He was free and able to do whatever he wanted. 

He was extremely competent. Too competent for any peace of mind. 

She needed to hear exactly what had happened from Coulson. 

Coulson apologized for not notifying her. “We didn’t want to worry you until we knew for sure. We have Bakshi in custody.”

She blinked, trying to connect the second fact to Ward being free, and failing. 

“Ward has declared that he’s ‘on our side’, and is going to keep giving us little ‘presents.’” He was overusing quotation marks, fingers in bunny ears beside his face. She was fairly sure he was doing it on purpose, to lighten the mood, but the implication of what he was saying was worrying enough that she didn’t call him on it. 

She chewed on a hangnail, speaking around her hand nervously. “Bakshi was a present then. Are they…did he say anything about me?” 

Coulson’s expression dropped and he reached out and put his hand on her shoulder. “No. He didn’t. He’s still only talking to Skye.” Tension down her spine released at the news and she slumped slightly, even if some deep part of her was injured by the reminder that Skye had clearly been his focus all along anyways. Coulson must have felt the relaxation, because his next words were meant to be reassuring along the same vein, even though they cut like a knife. “I think you were just part of his cover, Simmons. I don’t think you have to be worried.”

She forced herself to nod and smile slightly. Going undercover in HYDRA had helped her ability to lie to people’s faces immensely, though it didn’t hurt that he wasn’t looking deeply anymore, and within moments she was dismissed. 

They’d only slept together a few times. Five times, to be exact. But he’d been so affectionate even before the first time that she’d – But no. It was better this way. He was a traitor and a murderer and how could she feel bruised that he’d lied about caring for her when he’d lied about everything else? When he’d tried to kill her. 

She shook the thought from her mind and headed back to the lab, making a mental note to check in on Skye within the next few days since she’d be having a rough time of it.

A few weeks passed before she went back into the field. She was only supposed to grab some samples, but like everything else it was fairly high risk. Or it was supposed to be. Instead of the dozen guards she’d been told to expect, there were just open doors. Bobbi, worried about the change, added an extra fifteen minutes on her sweep of the facility before giving the okay. It was odd, and Jemma intended to discuss the matter with Skye, except that was about the same time that Ward started making appearances on Skye’s missions. The girl was obviously shaken, and Jemma put aside her own less dire concerns to comfort her. 

“It was just so creepy, Jemma. I round a corner and come face to face with a guard, and then BAM! He’s dead and Ward is smirking at me through the window.” She shuddered and Jemma put a soothing hand on her back, not sure what to say but willing to be there for her.

That night Jemma dreamed that Ward was in her room. He was leaning over her, shirtless, and she smiled and reached up for him. He grinned back teeth sharp and white and dark blood started to drip out of his mouth and eyes. His voice was gravelly as he said, “Give me a kiss.” She tried to get away from him but he was everywhere. 

She managed to jerk herself awake and spent the rest of the night huddled in the corner of her bed, nightmare images dancing behind her eyes every time she so much as blinked. Naturally, she had difficulty falling asleep the next night, but once she drifted off her dreams were Ward free. That continued to be true until after her next mission.

She spent the entire time looking over her shoulder, expecting Ward to appear from behind every corner. He never did. 

She had the nightmare again that night. This time he was already braced over her, hand playing with her hair. He smiled, teeth bright and unnaturally sharp and she twitched away, waiting for the blood. It never came. He just kept smiling and touching her softly. But she knew what was behind the smile and she couldn’t get away.

She started to join May for her Tai Chi and found that if she was tired enough she could sleep without dreams. It was better than trying to drug herself. Tempting as that thought was, she knew how few drugs they had in their stores and didn’t want to wipe it out on her own. 

Her next mission went well, with more odd luck. Jemma was there to make sure they could be moved safely. With Trip’s help they had the only one who needed it strapped to a back brace for removal. But it still took longer than they had allotted, and the guards should’ve come back no less than three times before the prisoners were ready to be moved. 

She was relieved about it, since it was potentially a deeply risky mission. Coulson seemed oddly concerned about how everything had gone down, but given the amount of stress he was under it was understandable he’d be suspicious of everything.

Or maybe he was just stressed about the mission Skye was going on later that week and letting his suspicion carry him through. 

Skye curled up with Jemma the night after her mission. She’d seen Ward again. He’d taken out a guard with a headshot and called Skye on the dead man’s phone. Jemma offered her as much comfort as she could, which didn’t feel like much. In comparison, her own missions were still going smoothly and were completely Ward free.

Skye started to make a habit of crashing with Jemma the night after nearly every mission, only not showing up on the odd occasion when Ward hadn’t either. The stories were always distressing, even if Ward was always helping Skye.

The few missions that Jemma and Skye both went on were always, noticeably, free of any sightings of Ward. Regardless of that fact, Jemma was always extremely worried before the start of any mission with the other woman and had trouble sleeping the night before. 

It was two months since Ward had broken out and she had another mission with Skye. It had been a few weeks since they’d worked together, and recently all of Skye’s missions had Ward there, taunting and teasing, instead of just most. Which meant that Jemma was even more worried than she’d been in a long time. The thought of seeing Ward made her hands shake and her blood rush in her ears. She wasn’t lucky enough that he simply wouldn’t show up now, not when he’d been showing up to all of Skye’s recent missions. 

But Ward never showed up. Jemma thought maybe she missed him, that he’d helped somewhere she wasn’t, but during debriefing she found that no one had seen him. Skye was giddy with the respite. It made sense to Jemma though; the mission had gone off flawlessly, with everything being precisely where it was supposed to be and no interruptions from guards deviating from their paths. Obviously Ward didn’t need to show up to help if there was nothing to help with.

Jemma felt like she should’ve been able to calm down and be less worried after that, but now it almost felt like it was inevitable. Unless he was actively avoiding her – and there was no real reason for him to do that – or unless she started refusing all missions with Skye, it was bound to happen eventually.

She tried to be hopeful though. Ward continued to not show up on the missions she shared with Skye. Maybe he’d actually taken her threat seriously? Or, more likely in her mind, he was trying to hurt her somehow by refusing to show up. Which was good, anything that kept him away was good. 

One night, before another mission with Skye when she was failing to fall asleep, Jemma overheard two other agents gossiping. She was aware that there were rumors, there always were, but Jemma only ever heard the ones that Skye shared with her, really, and so was surprised when she heard just what they were discussing. The other agents were talking about how surprisingly easy any mission that Jemma was on went. And how very unusual that was. 

Her heart was pounding loud in her ears, and their voices sounded like they were traveling through a tunnel as they discussed the likelihood that someone was helping her. After all, the only other person with missions going that well was Skye, and everyone knew about her psychotic helper. 

She walked back to her room in a daze, dread beating behind her ribs. It was almost a relief, then, when she deviated from her set course during the next day’s mission because she thought she heard a whimper, and came upon a literal pile of bodies. 

There were seven of them. She remembered how the door that was supposed to have been heavily guarded had just had one man. She let out a sharp breath when she realized she had heard a whimper. Six of the men were dead from precise headshots. The seventh had gotten shot in the throat and was still alive, gurgling. 

She covered her mouth and swallowed back the acid welling up in her throat. “Oh god.” Her voice sounded loud in the quiet of the corridor. Bloody foam bubbled from the last man’s mouth, and then he was silent and still. 

Her earpiece crackled to life. “Hey, Simmons, where are you? We don’t know which equipment you want us to grab.” Skye’s cheerful voice had no place here.

Jemma took an unsteady step back, but managed to keep her voice steady as she replied, “Sorry, I’ll be there shortly.” 

She walked slowly to the lab, taking continuous small sips of her canteen along the way, reciting everything she knew about fighting off nausea in a continuous loop in her mind to block out any other thoughts as best she could. But one thought kept fighting it’s way to the forefront of her mind: she’d been right to be worried about Ward showing up on her missions. 

“Are you okay? You look pale.” Skye was eyeing her with no small amount of concern. Jemma froze momentarily, unaware she’d already arrived. 

She offered the girl a frail smile. “I’m feeling a little unwell. Lets finish up here.” She tried to quickly point out what they needed to take with them.

Despite her obvious concern for Jemma, Skye looked lighter then she had in a while and Jemma knew it was in large part due to the security the other girl felt that Ward wouldn’t show up that day. 

Jemma didn’t want to tell Skye. Not yet. The girl deserved some source of comfort. And besides, she wasn’t actually sure it had been caused by Ward. Someone else could have killed those guards. Maybe someone else had wanted something from the lab and had snuck in before them and gotten scared off when he’d heard them. That was entirely possible. 

Now, if there had been any actual, irrefutable proof that it was Ward, obviously she would’ve had to say. But for now? For now she could just not mention it. Especially since telling anyone now would draw out the mission and Jemma just wanted to get home. 

It was fine. It probably wasn’t Ward anyways. There was no reason to take the comfort of Ward free missions away from Skye when she wasn’t even sure.

It was odd, however, that he’d show up so readily when Skye was on a mission, but hide his involvement when Jemma was also there. She wasn’t sure she actually wanted to think about it at all.

So she tried not to. 

After all, the team already knew that Ward was haunting Skye, would knowing he was showing up on all of Skye’s missions really change anything in their behavior? 

The next time she went out on a mission without Skye and one of the other agents remarked about how few guards there were, less than half the expected number, she reminded herself that the World Cup was happening, and even HYDRA agents must play hooky sometimes, right?

Once, and only once, she caught sight of a boot and a trail of blood around a corner and she turned away. He obviously had gotten faulty information, he thought Skye was going to be there that day, not her. His focus was clearly on Skye, not her. But it wasn’t as if the intelligence he had about missions could be a hundred percent, so it was likely that he wasn’t able to tell when Skye would or would not be there, and so sometimes he was bound to help whatever team was out. It had nothing to do with her.

In any case, he had claimed to want to give gifts to the whole team, this must just be for everyone in general – or more exactly, for whatever sick game he was playing. He still only talked to Skye, after all. 

That thought brought some measure of comfort, and she held it close to her for as long as she could.

She was on a mission, sitting in a small café, holding a to-go cup of coffee and waiting for her cue. She was just supposed to bump into the mark and spill at least some of her coffee on him; Bobbi would do the rest. It was a low risk job and one that they’d only asked her to be on because she could still, even after infiltrating HYDRA, use more practice with easy undercover. 

She was trying not to over plan, when her ear bud screeched then fizzled static painfully. No one else in the café turned to look at her, so it thankfully wasn’t audible to them, just deafening to her. 

She raised her phone to her ear, so she could at least pretend she wasn’t talking to the voices in her head. Her voice was slightly higher and shook as she asked, “Bobbi, Tripp? You there?” but she couldn’t help her nerves and she knew they wouldn’t hold it against her. 

There was a dark chuckle in her ear, and she almost dropped the phone. “They can’t hear you, Jemma.” 

She bit her lower lip and searched the café for him, even though since he was on the coms – somehow – and there was no need for him to be even slightly close. She kept her jaw tight, unwilling to give him the pleasure of a response, and instead started to compose a text on her phone. 

He tsked, softly, in her ear before speaking again. “I know you can hear me. You need to get out of there now, sweetheart.” 

Her hand spasmed on the keys of her phone, causing her sentence to end in gibberish. “Don’t call me that.” 

His voice, this time, had sadness to it that she told herself was all artifice. “Okay, I won’t. But you need to leave, now. Hydra caught your picture on the security cameras and is sending agents to your location.” 

Her breath hitched. “Tripp and Bobbi can—“ 

“Tripp and Bobbi are busy dealing with whatever stupid risky mission they have you on. I don’t care where you go, but you need to move. Now!” He snapped the last, and some part of her must still have been conditioned to respond to his orders in emergencies, because she found herself on the sidewalk, speed walking towards where the helojet was parked before she’d really considered his words. She almost stopped when he purred, “Good girl.”

Before she could respond there came the awful screech again, and Tripp and Bobbi were talking at her, loudly, demanding to know why she moved. 

Her hands were shaking badly and wouldn’t stop, so she wrapped her arms around herself and answered their demands in a small voice. “Ward was in my earbud.” 

Tripp and Bobbi were with her very quickly after that. Tripp put a coat around her when they got settled on the plane and Bobbi kept shooting her worried looks. Neither of them asked her any questions. She continued to shake until they were safely back at the base.

She curled up in a chair in Coulson’s office and May handed her a cup of hot tea. Despite the fact that the heat hurt a little, she wrapped her hands fully around the cup, oddly relieved that she could feel anything through the numb shock that had descended in the plane.

“I think…I think he’s been watching all of us. On every mission. I just – how did he get into the coms?” She didn’t realize she was shaking again until May plucked the cup from her grasp to keep her from spilling. She and Coulson were exchanging a look over her head. Jemma couldn’t decipher it and didn’t particularly want to try. She let out a shaky breath and rested her forehead on her knees.

A clearing throat and a scuffing of a boot came before Tripp started to talk. He was very matter of fact and calm about it, describing the mission from his point of view. Jemma just let his voice wash over her as she tried, again, to convince herself that Ward just wanted Skye. 

As Jemma slowly started to calm down, May handed her the now lukewarm tea. She was glad to drink it, even though it was bitter from over steeping. She could feel herself starting to steady as the tea did its job. She was British, and there was part of her that would always believe tea could fix anything. 

Bobbi was explaining what she’d seen happen now, and Jemma looked up and nodded, breaking in to explain what actually happened when Bobbi finished her report.

After the debriefing, Fitz spent a week reprograming the coms in the hopes of making them harder for Ward to get access to. Which was a challenge. No one was entirely sure how he’d managed to get on the channel, it really shouldn’t have been possible. 

Coulson pulled her from the field, stating that they needed her to analyze all of the samples the other teams had been collecting. Given that up until that point she’d been going into the field to analyze, it was a flimsy cover at best, but she was glad for it. 

It wasn’t until a full month had passed that the boredom of not leaving the base started to get to her. When she requested it, Coulson gave her a mission.

It was supposed to be laughably easy. There was an abandoned HYDRA lab where she would collect samples if there were any – or at least make note of what the type of equipment still there could mean – and leave. 

She was understandably annoyed when the field agents wouldn’t let her in until they’d checked the entire building and secured it. It was obvious that Coulson had given them instructions on keeping her extra safe, and she was sure it was out of genuine concern, but that didn’t stop her from being annoyed. 

She was just sighing again and walking towards the guard at the outside door to ask if she could go in yet when her ear bud screeched loudly. She clapped a hand to her ear and looked around, alarmed, it was exactly the same noise that had come before Ward spoke to her last time.

Her concern was short lived, however, before the building she’d been walking towards exploded and she was flying through the air. It hurt for only a moment before her world went abruptly black.

When consciousness returned everything hurt but she also felt a bit like she was floating about five inches above her body. This meant two things: one, she was still alive and two, she’d been given morphine. 

It took a moment for her to realize that the high-pitched buzzing she was hearing was actually her ears ringing and not, like she’d feared, her com buzzing in her ear. Opening her eyes was difficult; they were dry and felt like they’d been glued shut. Eventually, she managed to get them open, the pain of prying her lids apart actually causing her eyes to water which helped the proceedings.

Once she had them open, not much changed. It wasn’t black anymore, but it was still dark and grey and really unclear. She took a moment to see if someone was around, if there was anything she recognized. There was no one there, and while she was willing to allow that they may have had to move the base again, it didn’t follow that they’d be somewhere she wouldn’t at least have an IV or that someone wouldn’t be there for her to wake up to. Unless they were just outside? She shifted to try to get up, and there was sharp, cutting pain up her left arm and she could almost hear the sound of her bones grinding together.

She lost consciousness again.

She came to more slowly this time, and more cautiously. She wasn’t floating as much, so it was likely the morphine was wearing off. She could feel the pain start to beat, softly still, at her temples. Her ears were still ringing, but less, which was a decidedly good sign. She tried to take stock of her body before moving this time. Wiggling her toes was met with success and only minor pains, and a few tentative shifts of her head assured her she hadn’t broken her neck, though she suspected she’d wretched it somehow, which was still quite a large relief. 

Looking down at her body told her that her left arm was definitely broken. And her right pointer and middle fingers were splinted together. The cast was the standard emergency plaster cast that came in SHIELD field kits. That would’ve been more comforting to her a year ago. 

The room was still grey, and with careful movements of her head she could see that the light was coming from a small, dirty window at the very top of the room. The movement made her temples pound and she had to freeze there for a long moment before it faded enough that she could move. She couldn’t tell if it was dusk outside or if it was just that kind of dirty. Regardless, it was eight feet off the ground and tiny – it wasn’t going to do her much good. 

The room was empty but for her bed and one spartan, half collapsing bedside table without so much as a lamp. There were no visible cameras that she could see, but there was what looked like a speaker in the ceiling and a dingy light fixture. 

She still didn’t know where she was, she was in scrubs, and she didn’t have any shoes. It was not particularly encouraging. 

Forcing herself to take even, calm breaths she tried to think through the pain. Her head was feeling clearer with the loss of the morphine, but it was hard to think with mini pick axes chipping away at her head. This wasn’t anywhere at the base. It was possible that whoever else from the field team that had survived the bomb had brought her somewhere close, but she’d been the one furthest away from the building where the explosion had originated, it didn’t seem very hopeful. Especially since no one was around. Someone was always around when agents woke up to make sure they wouldn’t panic.

So someone else had her. Probably HYDRA. And they needed her functional for something, or else they never would’ve bothered to put her in a cast. 

Part of her was still hoping that SHIELD was waiting outside the door, that they’d had to move for some reason. But most of her was overcome by the fact that everything was just a tiny bit off to how it should’ve been and so she risked trying to sit up. That was when she discovered that she had certainly bruised her ribs. She’d thought the pain in breathing was from jostling her broken arm, that it had been improperly set, cast or no cast, but no, the ribs under the arm were bruised, at the very least.

She hissed through her teeth for a moment, trying to take shallow breaths, but she wouldn’t be subdued, and after a few moments she managed to get unsteadily to her feet. 

She walked straight to the metal door, but it didn’t so much as rattle when she tried to open it. What little hope she had of being surrounded by SHIELD fled.

Grimly, she came to the conclusion that she was going to have to do her best to get out on her own. 

It took the better part of an hour for her to manage to break up the rickety table, and she shed countless tears as she jostled her injuries. But she was going to need the element of surprise, and there was no better time. She waited beside the door, leg of the table clutched in her hand as a weapon. It wasn’t a particularly good weapon, but it was the best she had and so she would have to work with it.

She was tense and waiting, when she heard an odd hissing noise. At first she thought maybe the ringing in her ears was returning, but it didn’t sound quite right. Then there was a sweet smell that hit her nose. Looking up she was horrified to discover that it wasn’t a speaker in the ceiling, but rather a vent and there was a thin white gas creeping out of it. 

“Oh bugger.” She tried to tug her shirt up to cover her nose and mouth, but she was already feeling light headed. The table leg fell from numb fingers, and she just barely managed to ease herself onto the ground before her world was again black. 

There was something jostling her. And a voice. But it floated away. There were arms around her and her eyes wouldn’t open. Then there was moisture – water – at her mouth for an instant, and then it was gone. There was warm pressure on her forehead. Sheets were tucked around her. Her awareness faded again.

When she regained consciousness next, the room was bright with the ceiling light, she was tucked securely in the bed and she only had a few moments to blink in confusion before the door was crashing down showing May and two other agents. 

Jemma nearly cried with relief at seeing them. She didn’t know how they had found her, but she didn’t care. Both of the agents were very jumpy, so she assumed finding her had been rough – May, naturally, was cool and calm once she’d asserted that Jemma was still alive. 

Naturally, she was ushered straight into the medical bay when she got in. As one of the medics was checking over her splint fingers she noticed a dark smudge on her cast, and turning it over carefully she saw there was an “XOXO –GW” on it in very familiar hand writing. She went cold all over and didn’t realize she had stopped breathing until one of the nurses put a hand on her shoulder and she took a huge gasp of air. 

It had made so much sense for HYDRA to be holding her, to want her to work for them or maybe to use her as incentive for something else but– but for it to be Ward. She wasn’t– she didn’t– 

She waved the concerned nurse off, shaking her head and chanting. “I’m fine, I’m fine,” under her breath. Her head was light and she didn’t understand. 

Staying as still as she could through her fingers being re-splinted, she shakily asked, “Would it be possible to take the cast off and have a new one put on? I know the x-ray indicated it was fine but…Please?” 

The medic looked concerned, but nodded. She felt slightly better once she had a new cast on, though she still had to be very intentional about her breathing when Coulson finally entered to debrief her. 

She didn’t want to have her theory confirmed on how they’d found her, so when Coulson opened his mouth, she found herself outlining her own experience in a shaky voice. 

He listened and nodded from the hard chair next to her bed, and when she paused for slightly too long near the end of her story, wanting to draw it out, he reached out and laid his hand over her uninjured wrist. “Are you okay, Simmons?” 

Taking in a deep breath through her nose, she shrugged and looked away from him. “I don’t— I don’t want you to tell me that it was…That he was the one who had me. Please.” 

Staring down at the gingham blanket across her lap, she missed his frown but she felt him squeeze her wrist once before releasing it. “Okay. You’ve had a rough few days, why don’t you sleep some, and we can talk about this later?” 

She nodded and continued to stare at her lap. She didn’t hear anything, but she thought maybe he’d left, until he spoke again from the same place. “And Simmons, regardless of the how’s, I’m relieved you’re okay. I am sorry you had to go through that.” 

She nodded again and could feel some of the tension leave her shoulders. This time she heard the scrape of the chair as he stood up and left. 

For the next day Jemma was jumping at shadows and flinching from loud voices, somehow expecting Ward to just appear in the secure base. Of course, after a few good meals, several naps and a very hot shower she started to settle and adjust back to life as normal in the base.

It wasn’t until after she’d had her fingers un-splinted that Coulson told her what she’d dreaded hearing. She still didn’t want to know, but she felt compelled to be sure and so she’d asked. She did feel somewhat better, at least, after washing the dirt of the place out from under her nails. 

She’d been missing for three days and they’d been searching through the rubble for bodies when Ward had contacted them. Coulson didn’t offer to tell her the exact words that were exchanged, and she didn’t want to know, but she got the definite impression that threats had been traded at the very least.

Due to the low number of agents available, she was put back into the on-duty roster sooner than she suspected Coulson wanted to. But she knew she didn’t want to sit around the base and get restless again, so she was glad for it. 

She was just washing up after an easy mission when her personal phone chimed from her bed. Wrinkling her nose, she ignored it as she finished drying her hair. It chimed a reminder and she rolled her eyes. Skye really needed to stop texting instead of walking the ten feet from her room to say things. Once, Skye had texted her fifty times in quick succession because she hadn’t answered the original text quick enough. This time, at least she stopped after one.

Just as she thought it, her phone chimed again and she rolled her eyes and grabbed it off the bed. She was on her way to Skye’s room when the alarm sounded through the base. She swore, ducked back into her room to drop her phone off and grab her work phone. 

By the time the nuclear threat had been cleared up – mainly by discovering that the non HYDRA organization making the threat did not have access to anything nuclear and then easily taking them all into custody – she’d forgotten about getting any text messages. She stumbled in so exhausted that she didn’t even bother to check her phone. 

The next morning she saw it had died overnight and she plugged it in before heading into the lab. She was in the lab until late, and didn’t get to her phone until nearly everyone else was asleep.

She turned it on and was amused to see she had twelve text messages. Ten were from Skye, who’d clearly forgotten she was supposed to be using Jemma’s work phone, because they were all more or less repeats of things she had heard in the field.

Two of them were from unlisted numbers. 

Frowning, she clicked one open. No one off the base should have had access to her newest phone number as they tended to switch them out every few months for security reasons. 

The first one was from the morning the alarm had sounded and said only: I told you, I’d always catch you.

She blinked, frowned, and then sat down heavily. She could feel the blood draining from her face, and with shaking fingers she clicked over to see what the other message was.

It was from later that same day and said: You shouldn’t smile so much at the field agents, they’ll get the wrong idea.

Her phone dropped from nerveless fingers and fell heavily to the floor. It made an alarming crack, but she didn’t even look to see if it had survived. She hoped it hadn’t. 

She curled up on her bed, still dressed with the lights on, and closed her eyes and tried to go to sleep. It was okay, it was just a phone message. He was a specialist, getting ahold of her number would’ve been no problem for him. It was okay. It didn’t mean anything.

The next day she forced herself to check her phone and found that it had, in fact, broken when it had fallen and wouldn’t even turn on. She let out a sigh of relief and tried to push the memory of the messages away as she went about her day.

It wasn’t until a few days later that Skye cornered her and asked why she wasn’t answering her phone that Jemma blinked, pleasantly surprised she had managed to forget about it entirely. She’d been lucky that not having it hadn’t interfered with anything. 

Naturally, she had a new phone with a new number by dinnertime. 

Two days later she was checking her email on one of the lab computers. Skye had recently updated Jemma’s email to have a pop-up preview of all new messages because she complained that the other woman was too suspicious about clicking on mail. The address looked like someone had key smashed and the popup was of Ward blowing her a kiss. She deleted it as fast as she could, slamming the laptop shut and pushing it away from her. She took a few deep breaths, rubbing her face with her palms and trying to calm her racing heart. No one else was in the lab to watch her sit and shake on one of the stools for several long moments.

She got another text the next day, just a simple, “See you soon,” from an unlisted number. 

It was a relief that she had to leave her phone behind for a mission, and she purposefully left it uncharged. The mission was uneventful for everyone else, very by the book, but she nearly had a panic attack when her ear bud cut out. She knew what was coming even before his voice was in her ear. All he said was, “You shouldn’t frown so much, you never know when someone could be falling in love with your smile.” And then her ear bud was back on and there was pleasant chatter.

She dreaded turning her phone on when she got back to base, but she knew she had to face it at some point. There were four messages from Skye squealing over an episode of Doctor Who, and that was it. 

It was, somehow, worse this way. She knew he wouldn’t stop, and waiting for the message to show up was just putting her more on edge. 

She spent about half an hour just staring at her phone and checking her email before she forced herself from her room. She went to find May and asked the older woman to teach her some self-defense, for missions nominally, but really to take her mind off of everything else. 

She returned to her room much later and much more sore. There were still no emails or phone messages. She let herself hope that he’d had his fun and now it was done. 

There was an email waiting for her the next morning. This time she steeled herself and clicked. The email said, “I dreamt of you last night. Did you dream of me?” And there was a picture of a blackboard with a faint formula barely visible. She hesitated, and then wrote the formula down in a notebook before deleting the email. 

The formula ended up being the entirety of a chemical reaction that they’d seen pieces of, not knowing they were all connected, in some of the labs they’d infiltrated. The leap of logic to just what HYDRA was doing with the formula was easy for Jemma, and she buried herself in creating an antidote so that when, inevitably, their agents got exposed it was easy enough to cure them.

In the process of creating the antidote she ended up seriously sleep deprived and crashed as soon as she’d handed it off to Coulson. She meant to tell him about the emails, but by the time she regained consciousness Coulson was off base handling something else and she didn’t feel comfortable confiding in anyone else. She would’ve felt comfortable confiding in Skye, but Skye was still being tracked and showing up in the comfort of Jemma’s room to cope and she refused to stress the girl more.

Unfortunately, because the formula had been so useful it meant that she now felt obligated to read all of the emails and messages he sent. 

They kept coming after that. Barely a day would go by where she didn’t get contacted in some way by him. Either a text, innocent enough except for the sender, an email, nearly always more graphic and occasionally with pictures, or his voice in her ear on a mission, often giving her advice about what she was doing wrong.

Every once in a while a text would become creepy, something like the one that described, in detail, how pretty she looked when she was afraid. Or the time she’d received, “I love the way your skin tastes wet from the shower,” right after finishing her shower. 

But it wasn’t until she received a text that said, “I love how you look in that sweater. The red really brought out the flush in your cheeks when I went down on you in the lab.” 

It was no more graphic than anything else, but she hadn’t left the base that day. There should’ve been no way he’d known what jumper she was wearing.

Ward had to have some way of getting knowledge from inside the base. They weren’t even in a base he’d ever been held captive in, she didn’t know how it was possible. 

She paced for a good half hour in her lab, arms tight around herself, before she came to a conclusion. 

She sat down at her desk and wrote out, “I think there is either a spy for Ward or potentially bugs somewhere. We need to talk about this somewhere secure.” She folded it up and finally left the lab to hunt down May or Coulson.

She had previously thought she trusted everyone else in the base too, but now she wasn’t so sure and was looking at everyone suspiciously. 

May was in the kitchen, drinking a cup of tea. Jemma knew she looked shifty when she handed the paper over to May, but May just arched an eyebrow, opened it just enough to read, and blinked. It was the most shocked Jemma had ever seen May. The woman frowned at her and tilted her head in question. Jemma spread her hands wide and shrugged. May sighed, nodded, and lit the papers on fire from the decorative candle one of the newest agents had a fondness for putting everywhere. 

Jemma started her own tea water as May finished hers and left. 

A few hours later May grabbed her, literally, when she was walking by an empty room. Coulson and Skye were already inside, seated at a small round table.

May sat down at the small table and said, “I checked this place over, it’s as secure as we can possibly get without getting very suspicious. What do you have Simmons?” 

Jemma perched on one of the chairs and ran her finger against the edge of the table. “I’ve been getting text messages from Ward for a while now.” She ignored Skye’s shocked gasp and kept her gaze down as she continued. “They aren’t anything—he’s just trying to throw me off, I think. I’ve been mostly ignoring them because there’s no useful information in them and I didn’t want to cause a fuss. But today—” She grimaced and shifted her weight, glad no one had interrupted her. “Today it was a compliment about how much he’d always liked me in this jumper–” she tugged on the collar of the item in question– “said the red brought out my eyes.” She looked up and finally met the eyes of the others. “I haven’t been out of the base today. And I only just found this jumper again, it had fallen in with my lab equipment that only got unpacked today. He somehow has eyes in the base.”

Skye looked stricken, and reached across the table to grab Jemma’s hand. “You should’ve told us he was contacting you.” 

Jemma shook her head and said, very firmly, “It’s okay, really. He’s easy to ignore when he’s not in my ear during missions, and I told you every time he hacked the coms. He still contacts you more.” 

Skye nodded, squeezed Jemma’s hand, then fiddled with her computer, pulling up images, and speaking quickly as she typed. “If you’re positive. Okay. I’m not finding any more signals that shouldn’t be in the base, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t around.”

Jemma frowned. That meant, most likely, that it was either hidden in one of their own transmitters or it was a person. She didn’t know which one was worse. 

May tapped her fingers on the table before saying, “Can you tell us what some of the other messages were?” 

Jemma winced and sighed. “Yes, of course. It’s usually things like, ‘I told you I’d catch you,’ or ‘be more careful,’ or ‘you need to learn to lie better.’ All of them following missions where he’d contacted me. There was never anything that indicated anything about where he was or what he was doing – we already knew he was stalking out missions. You’re welcome to look at the others if you want, but they’re rather repetitive.” 

Coulson took the phone that Jemma offered up before handing it off to Skye. “See if you can do anything with these.”

Skye hooked the phone up to her computer and immediately started typing. Coulson turned to Jemma and asked, “Have you ever responded to his messages?” 

She grimaced and shook her head. “No. It seemed like a bad idea to encourage him. I avoid talking to him as best I can when he gets on my coms too, though sometimes I can’t help it.”

Skye looked up sharply and said, “Dude, Simmons, I mean, if you can ignore these that’s great, but these are way creepier than anything he’s saying or sending to me.” 

Jemma looked off to the side and shrugged, taking a breath before looking back at Skye. “We did sleep together, I really think he’s just trying to throw me off my game. You, I think, he wants forgiveness from.” 

Skye grimaced and pushed back, shrugging. “Yeah, maybe.” 

Jemma gave herself a minute before speaking. “But, I think that we can use this. He’s…he already, ah, took me that one time with the explosion. I think…we can put me in danger and he’ll come and you can take him out. I think he’s trying to prove to me that he can keep me safe.” 

May let her finish and then said, “Absolutely not.”

But Coulson made a thoughtful noise, and eyed Jemma contemplatively.

Skye stood up. “If we’re doing this I can be in the trap. I’m better at defending myself, so if something comes up and he gets through I’ll be able to take care of myself.” She glanced at Jemma. “No offense.” 

Jemma shook her head. “But that’s the thing, I know I’m not as good at defending myself as you are, but I have gotten better. And he knows you’re capable of defending yourself. From everything in the messages I’m pretty sure he’s convinced I’m incapable. Not to mention how he reported my location when I had the broken arm. What did he say, Sir?”

Coulson stood up and paced for a moment before leaning on the table and meeting her eyes. “That we needed to take better care of you.” 

Jemma waved a hand through the air. “Exactly!” 

May shook her head. “No. We absolutely are not doing this. He’s a threat but he’s not our main one.”

Jemma bit her lip before pointing out the obvious. “He has some way to know what’s going on in the base. For now he’s just using it to torment me, and probably to torment Skye, but can we be sure that it will end there? We have to plug the leak. Everyone went through the lie detector test, and we can do it again and see if anyone has contact with Ward, but it could be an electronic leak. Besides, he fooled the test once, someone else could as well. We can’t take this risk, May.” 

May frowned, but Coulson overruled her. “No, she’s right. But we have to do this right. I’m not putting you in danger. And make no mistake, he may be sending you some of the creepiest love notes I’ve ever seen, but he is still dangerous.” 

Jemma nodded, serious. “I know he is.”

The plan was too risky to try with just the four of them, so May went to notify Triplett, Bobbi and Lance. Jemma was, quite frankly, relieved to have more backup. She just wanted this over. And she knew there were a ton of ways it could go wrong, but she was fairly sure they were accounting for most of them. They went over the plan multiple times. 

There would be two fake missions to cover up the trap. First, May, Coulson, Triplett and Lance would head out, theoretically to a base in Florida, but they’d double back and set up in position nearby. Then she’d go with Bobbi and Skye to check out a lab that HYDRA had abandoned a month or so ago. They had surveillance that showed a massive number of booby traps, whose locations she had to memorize. The three of them would break up once they got there, her to head to one of the more abandoned laboratory sections and to trigger one of the traps so that Ward would show up to save her, theoretically.

Coulson called her into his office a week later to give her the “mission” that was a cover for their trap. 

Getting in and everyone spreading out wasn’t a problem. The problem came when she showed up in the specific lab she was supposed to investigate and there were already people there. Three HYDRA agents. 

Ward’s voice in her left ear saying, “Don’t do anything stupid, Jem,” spurred her into action and she ducked behind an overturned steel lab table and started firing. 

She managed to get two of them before her gun ran out of bullets. She was changing the cartridge when the third goon rounded her table, gun trained on her forehead. She let the gun drop and raised her hands, standing up slowly and feeling oddly calm knowing that she was going to die. 

She closed her eyes.

There came the sound of a gun firing and hot wetness on her face. She blinked open her eyes and Ward was there, gun still aimed to where the side of the man’s head had been. 

She raised a shaky hand a wiped at her face, it came away red and grey.

She looked at him and saw that he was a little worse for the wear, bloody and dusty. Her stomach dropped and she reached a hand to her ear, trying to reactivate her coms after whatever he’d done to them. “May?” 

He took a step towards her. “She’s fine, sleeping off the ICER.”

She let out a shuddering breath, relieved and terrified. May was alive. That was good.

He reached out and traced his fingers down her cheek. She could see the blood and grey matter he’d wiped away when he pulled his hand back. “You look beautiful.” 

She could feel fine tremors shaking her frame, and she absently noticed how cold she was feeling. She was definitely going into shock. But her voice was surprisingly steady. “Why are you doing this to me?” 

He tilted his head, eyes bright, and, like the answer should be obvious, stated, “Because I love you.” 

She clenched her jaw to keep her teeth from clattering. “But…Skye.” 

He grinned and reached out to frame her face with his palms, he followed her smoothly when she tried to jerkily step back out of his hold. “Is a diversion, nothing more. She’s amusing, but she’s not you.” 

He shifted one hand to cradle the back of her head and leaned down to kiss her. She resolutely kept her mouth shut, her lips tight, but he continued to kiss her softly. He pulled back and was finally frowning. “You’re mad at me.” 

She couldn’t help but laugh, incredulously. “I hate you. I wish you were dead.” 

He shook his head and swooped down to kiss her again, catching her this time on her laugh and taking shameless advantage by darting his tongue inside before she could bite down. He pulled back, smug. “No, you don’t. You wish you hated me. You wish that you could want me dead. But you don’t.” 

She kept her jaw clenched and shook her head. He brushed a kiss across her forehead. “You should stop going into such dangerous situations. Next time I may not let them take you back.” 

She hadn’t even seen him draw the ICER that he used to knock her out. 

And when she came to in the medical bay back at the base there was a text message in her phone. 

“I’ll be seeing you.”

**Author's Note:**

> My writing tumblr can be found [here](http://capriciouswrites.tumblr.com/)! Come say hi and give me a prompt.
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed and that no one is too traumatized. 
> 
> Even though I've written Creepy!Grant since I started this, this is still (in my heart) my first attempt at Creepy!Grant. So be kind please.


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